Harvest Monday - First Real Greens!

I know these two photos look almost exactly alike but they were taken on two different evening this past week when I harvested enough new salad greens (mesclun, speckled romaine and spinach) from the garden for salads enough for three.  Nothing beats the taste of newly picked lettuce in a salad.  Saturday's salad was the main course and featured marinated and sauteed steak over top the greens with lots of other toppings and a dressing of choice.  I chose ranch, Dan chose poppy seed and Sarah chose blue cheese.

Lots of other harvests can be viewed if you head over to Daphne's Dandelions.

Asparagus Soup

 Joining Robin at Gardener of Eden for Thursday's Kitchen Cupboard.

Here's a favorite spring time recipe for asparagus soup.  It's been a very long time since I grew my own asparagus but I have always loved eating it in the spring.  I came upon this recipe in the Fulton Elementary Cookbook which was the school I used to teach at.  The cookbook was published in 2002 and I was given a copy by one of my students because his illustration was selected for the cover.

Asparagus Soup

1 T. butter
1 small onion chopped
1 T flour
4 cups chicken broth
1 lb. asparagus cut in 1 inch pieces
1 tsp savory
sour cream or plain yogurt
chives

Melt butter.  Add onion and saute until tender.  Add flour and stir in to cook.
Gradually add chicken broth then bring to a boil.  Add asparagus and savory and simmer about 25 minutes.  Use an immersion blender to puree entire contents of your soup pan.  Serve with dollop of sour cream and a sprinkle of chives. (The chives and savory came from the herb garden and mentioned on Tuesday's post.)

Again I forgot to take a photo of the soup at serving time.  Here's a bowl partially finished.

Wordless Wednesday

Harvest Monday - Late Again!

 So one day last week I harvested from my herb bed in the perennial garden (clockwise from top) chives, savory, and oregano.  The chives were a garnish on top of a dollop of sour cream on top of asparagus soup.  Look for the recipe on Thursday!  The oregano went into an alfredo sauce of my making for ravioli.

 Sunday was stir fry night so I thinned some baby bok choy,

 and some tatsoi to add to the stir fry.

I also got this harvest of spinach for another quick stir fry of spinach with ginger and garlic.  Delicious.

The weather here is so tempting to plant out the tomatoes but I know its too soon especially since they haven't been hardened off.  This afternoon I transplanted them and four pepper plants into bigger peat pots. They barely fit under the grow light now.

See other harvests at host Daphne's Dandelions.